1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to an apparatus and method for telecommunications. More particularly, the present invention relates to an apparatus and method for forwarding calls to a new telephone number when an old telephone number has been changed, and billing an appropriate party for completing the call.
2. Background Information
In conventional telephone communication systems, when a telephone company's customer changes telephone numbers, a party calling the customer at the old telephone number receives a message informing the calling party that the number has changed. Typically, the message also informs the calling party of the new telephone number. In order to reach the customer, the calling party must then make note of the new telephone number, hang up and dial the new telephone number. Requiring the calling party to make note of the new number and redial the customer's new number may be enough of an inconvenience to prevent the calling party from attempting to contact the customer a second time. For example, the calling party may forget the new number before dialing it or may already know a telephone number of a competing business. Thus, particularly if the customer is a business, the loss of potential callers, e.g., business customers, is highly undesirable.
Other systems such as directory assistance call completion are also available. Directory assistance call completion is a system having logic residing within a switch for forwarding calls to a requested telephone number. According to directory assistance call completion, a calling party calls directory assistance and provides information necessary to determine the telephone number of a destination party the calling party would like to contact. Then, directory assistance provides the calling party with the destination party's telephone number and offers the option of completing the call to the destination for a fee which is paid by the calling party. The calling party may then agree to pay the fee and have the call forwarded or simply make note of the number, hang up and redial the destination telephone number. The directory assistance call completion service has a significant drawback in that the service operates within the switch, consuming valuable switch system resources.
Therefore, a need exists for a flexible call forwarding system which allows calls to be forwarded. The system should not operate at the switch level and should allow the option of billing either the calling party or the telephone company's customer for forwarding calls.